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History of the Origin of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Christian Church


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PRIZE ESSAY AWARDED FIFTY GUINEAS.

 

HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN OF 

THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 

IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

 

BY HUGH H. STANNUS.

 

1881

 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND APPENDIX

 

By the Rev. R. SPEARS.

 

1882

 

[FORTY-FIRST THOUSAND].

 

LONDON:

CHRISTIAN LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY,

281, STRAND.

AND MESSRS. WILLIAMS & NORGATE, LONDON.

 

1899.

 

[Entered at Stationers’ Hall.]


LONDON:

PRINTED BY G. REVEIRS, GRAYSTOKE PLACE,

FETTER LANE, E.C.

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PREFATORY STATEMENTS.

 

BIBLE TRUTHS.

 

“Hear, O Israel! Jehovah our God is one Jehovah”.— Moses.

 

“The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord”.—Christ.

 

“We know there is none other God but one”. “One God and Father of all who is above all”. “One God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”.— Paul.

 

THE TESTIMONY OF EMINENT MEN.

 

“For my own part I adhere to the Holy Scripture alone; I follow no other heresy or sect. If, therefore, the Father  be the God of Christ, and the same be our God, and if there be none other God but one, there can be no God besides the Father”.—John Milton.

 

“Because it [the Trinity] is inconsistent with the rule of prayer directed in the sacred Scriptures. For if God be three persons how can we pray to Him through His son for His spirit. . . .  For though there be many imaginary nominal gods, both in heaven and earth, as are indeed all their many gods and many lords, which are merely titular; yet to us Christians there is but only One God  the Father, and Author of all things, to whom alone we  address all our worship and service”.—John Locke.

 

“There is One God, the Father, ever loving, omnipresent, omniscient, almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth; and one Mediator between God and men—the man Christ Jesus. The Father is the invisible God. . . . Christ came not to diminish the worship of the Father. It is not necessary to direct our prayers to any other than the Father in the name of the Son”—Sir. Isaac Newton.

 

“Surely I ought to know the God whom I worship— whether he be a pure and simple being, or whether Thou art a threefold Deity, consisting of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit . . . The Deity is not made up of three such distinct and separate spirits.”—Dr. Isaac Watts.

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HISTORICAL QUOTATIONS.

 

“This doctrine (the Trinity) does not, it appears to me, belong strictly to the fundamental articles of the Christian faith; as it appears from the fact that it is explicitly set forth  in no one particular passage of the New Testament . . . We find in the New Testament no other fundamental article besides that of which the Apostle Paul says that other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, the preaching of Jesus as the Messiah; and the foundation of His religion is designated by Christ Himself, the faith in the only true God “ and in Jesus Christ whom he hath sent”.—Neander.

 

“While for so many centuries, of all the Christian doctrines, that of a Trinity in Unity has been considered the most obscure and mysterious, in the writings of the apostles there is no trace of any scruple which it created.  It seems to have called for no explanation, and it is not even spoken of  as a mystery”. —Bishop Hind.

 

“The whole Christian system was still [2nd century] comprised in a few precepts and propositions; nor did the teachers publicly advance any doctrines besides those contained in what is called the Apostles Creed. . . . The  Council of Constantinople, assembled by Theodosius the Great [in the fourth century, 381] gave the finishing touch to what the Council of Nice had left imperfect, and fixed in a full and determinate manner the doctrine of three persons in one God”.—Mosheim.

 

“In the fifth century Christianity had conquered Paganism and Paganism had infected Christianity. The Church was now victorious and corrupt. The rites of the Pantheon had passed into her worship, the subtleties of the Academy into her creed. In an evil day, though with great pomp and solemnity—we quote the language of Bacon—was the ill-starred alliance stricken between the old philosophy and the new faith. Questions widely different from those which had employed the ingenuity of Pyrrho and Carneades, but just as subtle, just as interminable, and just as unprofitable, exercised the minds of the lively and voluble Greeks. When learning began to revive in the West, similar trifles occupied the sharp and vigorous intellects of the schoolmen. There was another sowing of the wind and another reaping of the whirlwind”.—Macaulay.

 

“Before I shall conclude this head, it is requisite I should inform thee, reader, concerning the origin of the Trinitarian  doctrine:—Thou mayest assure thyself, it is not from the  Scriptures nor reason, since so expressly repugnant; although all broachers of their own inventions strongly endeavour to reconcile them with that holy record. Know then, my friend, it was born above three hundred years after the ancient Gospel was declared; it was conceived in ignorance, brought forth and maintained by cruelty; for though he that  was strongest imposed his opinion, persecuting the contrary, yet the scale turning on the Trinitarian side, it has there continued through all the Romish generations.”—William Penn.

 

“The true reformed religion (or, if you please, the truly old religion) is the Holy Scriptures (or the sum of the faith in them, the Apostles’ Creed) and holy life. In the appendages and circumstantials of Christianity, in fine, scholastic, improved notions, charity, peace, and meekness become us,—not zeal . . . Give me leave to demand of the world a reason why Christian communion should not be left at that latitude at which Christ and his apostles in Holy Scripture have left it? To this, if men would addict themselves (and why should they not) all schisms would soon be at an end.”—Bishop Wetenhall.

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CONTENTS AND ARGUMENT.

 

The strict and absolute unity of God is a first principle of the Bible. The entire scope and spirit of both the Old and New Testament are distinctly on the side of the uni-personality of God. The Jews, who made Monotheism their boast and glory, never charge Christ, or the first teachers of Christianity, with originating any new theory of the Godhead. Christ and the apostles spoke of the Father as the “only “true God”. It is repeatedly admitted by Trinitarians that the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible; and that in the earliest records of our religion, not only the word Trinity is not to be found, but no equivalent of the word, nor any proposition that intimates God is three persons. An additional fact, confirmatory of the sole Deity of God the Father, is found in Christ’s instruction and example of prayer, which were followed during the first two centuries. The two or three texts in the Bible supposed by some to foreshadow, or hint at, or imply the Trinity, receive at the hands of Trinitarian scholars a very simple and rational explanation, which lends no countenance to the theory of a plurality of persons in the Godhead. The doctrine of the Primitive Church is found in the Scripture, and also in the Apostles’ Creed; the doctrine of later times in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. The word Trinity, familiar to schools of philosophy, was introduced into- Christian literature about the close of the second century. The Pagan Trinities of the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Hindoo systems of religion (and also of Platonic philosophy) were popular at the time of the first planting of Christianity. The origin and developement of the doctrine of a Triune Deity in the Church is clearly traced to Platonic and other influences during the third and fourth centuries. Its introduction caused considerable discussion, agitation, and strife during the period named. The Council of Nice (A.D. 325) voted in favour of the Deity of Christ;  the Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381) fixed the doctrine of the Trinity. From that time the Roman Emperors resolved and proclaimed they would punish all Christians who would not believe in and worship three persons in one God. The following chronological data may aid the reader of this treatise to mark the progress of the doctrine, from the close of the second to the close of the fourth century:—

 

A.D.

 

 

 

1.—

Monotheism the boast and glory of the Jews.

29.—

About this time Jesus said, “The first commandment is, the Lord our God is one Lord”. . . “The true worshippers shall worship the Father”.

32.—

About this time Jesus said, “I ascend unto your Father and my Father, your God and my God”.

57.—

About this time Paul wrote, “There is none other God but one”. . .  “To us there is but one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ”.

96.—

About this time Clement wrote, “Christ was sent by God and the Apostles were sent by Christ”.

120.—

The Apostles’ Creed begins to be known to the Church. It says “I believe in God the Father Almighty”.

150.—

Justin Martyr about this time began with Platonic teaching to corrupt Christian simplicity.

170.—

The word Trias first occurs in Christian literature.

200.—

The word Trinitas is first used by Tertullian.

230.—

Origen writes against prayers being offered to Christ

260.—

Sabellius teaches,—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are three names for the same God.

300.—

No Trinitarian forms of prayer are yet known to the Church.

310.—

Lactantius (orthodox father) writes, “Christ never calls himself God”.

320.—

Eusebius writes, “Christ teaches us to call his Father the true God, and to worship Him”.

325.—

Eusebius writes, “Christ teaches us to call his Father the true God, and to worship Him”.

350.—

Great conflicts in the Church about the doctrine of the Trinity.

370.—

The Doxology, “Glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost”, composed, and complained of as a novelty.

381.—

The Council of Constantinople gives the finishing touch to the doctrine of “three persons in one God”.

383.—

The Emperor Theodosius threatens to punish all who will not believe in and worship the Trinity.

 

From this date Arianism rapidly declines In A.D. 451, the doctrine of the two natures of Christ becomes an established dogma. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost”, is ordered to be sung in all Churches, A.D. 529. The Clergy are commanded, A.D. 669, to commit to memory the Athanasian Creed. Bishop Basil required the Clergy, A.D. 826, to repeat this Creed every Sunday.
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INTRODUCTION.

 

CONSIDERATIONS, BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL, WHICH SUPPORT THE DOCTRINE OF THE ABSOLUTE ONENESS OF GOD.

 

There is an increasing belief that the creeds, generally accepted among the Churches, differ very widely from the statements of the Sacred Volume, and from the doctrines which were common in the first period of the Christian Church. On no question is this more striking than on that which refers to the Unity of God. While there is not the slightest hint in the Old Testament or the New of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, the doctrine of a Triune deity is spoken of at the present time, and has been for ages, as a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith.

 

All Christians are persuaded that God has revealed himself to us in the Holy Scriptures; and all agree that there is one God and Father of all, and that this doctrine is certified by revelation, and accords with enlightened reason. Yet a very grave divergence appears on the question of the absolute Unity of God. There are those who, when speaking of God, are satisfied with the simple and magnificent lan­guage of the Bible, that “there is one God; and there is none other but He”; while there are others who speak of the Godhead as a Trinity composed of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. With respect to this difference which has divided Christians, “what saith the Scripture”?

 

In making our appeal to the Sacred Volume, we may be allowed to recall to the memory of our readers the memorable words of Chillingworth:—“The Bible, I say, the Bible only is the Religion of Protestants. Whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion; but as a matter of faith and religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves, nor require the belief of it of others. . . . He that believes the Scripture sincerely, and endeavours to believe it in the true sense, cannot possibly be an heretic”.

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The Testimony of the Bible to the Unity of God.

 

“Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation”. —Articles of the Church of England.

 

On a question of such vital importance to the simplicity of belief and the purity of worship, as the UNITY of God, we go to the Bible. We learn in the clear, precise, and unequivocal language of its pages, that there is “ONE God and there is none other”; and this statement being in perfect accord with every chapter and verse of both Old and New Testament, we may fairly speak of it as a first principle of divine revelation. There are not only thousands of texts which teach this, but the entire complexion of the Bible sets forth the sole deity of ONE PERSON, called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and also repeatedly said to be “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”.

 

In the following and other texts God is styled “ONE”:—

 

“Jehovah our God is one Jehovah”—Deut. 6:4.         

 

“In that day there shall be one Jehovah, and his name one”—Zech. 14:9.

 

“Have we not all Father? Hath not one God created us”—Malachi 2:10.

 

“For one is your Father who is in heaven”—Matt. 23:9.

 

“There is none good but one, that is God”—Mark 10:18.

 

“The Lord our God is one Lord”—Mark 12:29.        

 

“There is one God, and there is none other”—Mark 12:32.   

 

“Seeing it is one God who shall justify”—Rom. 3:30.

 

“There is none other God but one”—1 Cor. 8:4.

 

“To us there is but one God the Father”—1 Cor. 8:6.

 

One God and Father of all”—Eph. 4:6.    

 

“Thou believest there is one God; thou doest well”—James 2:19.

 

It appears to us impossible for language to be more plain, precise, and emphatic as to the doctrine that God is one Being, one Person, one Mind, than the statements in the texts we have quoted. We may ask what words, what possible combination of words or sentences, could make more clear the strict unity of the One supreme, “the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God”. If the divine Being is not one person, but three persons in one God—if this is really a fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion,—we ask for a single sentence from any part of the Bible which says so. Dr. South admits, “It must be allowed that there is no such proposition as this, that one and the same God is three different persons to be found formally and in terms in the Sacred Writings”.1

 

_______

1 Considerations on the Trinity, p. 38.

Professor Hey, of Cambridge (Lectures II. 25), says, “The term Trinity not being Scriptural, we cannot adhere to Scripture and yet use that”.

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There are other classes of texts confirmatory of this doctrine, the Unity of God. We are all aware of the emphatic and pronounced way in which the singular pronoun and verb are used of the divine Being:—“I am the Almighty God”, Gen. 17:1; “I am, that I am”, Exodus 3:14; “Do not I fill heaven and earth”, Jer. 23:24.

 

Every page in the Bible abounds with this evidence in such forms of speech as “thine O Lord is the greatness”, “thine is the Kingdom”, &c, bearing repeated witness to the ever-repeated truth of both reason and revelation, that “Jehovah our God is ONE”.

 

There are, however, two or three texts in the Old Testament where the plural is found in relation to God:—“Let us make man in our image”; “The man is become as one of us”. John Calvin says of the text, “The man is become as one of us”; “From this place many Christians infer the doctrine of three persons in the Godhead; but I fear the argument is not valid”. And Dr. Croft, a learned Trinitarian, says:—“Perhaps too much stress is laid upon the expression,—‘Let us make man in our image.’ The plural is frequently applied to one only; and the language of consultation is evidently used in condescension to human infirmity”.2 In addition to these texts with the plural pronoun, it is only fair to add that in most places of the Hebrew scriptures the word translated God is Elohim. This is the plural form; El and Eloah being the singular. On this the late Dr. Campbell, of Aber­deen, says, “that Luther stood up for the Trinity from the word Elohim, but Calvin refutes his argument, or quibble rather, at some length”.3 Professor Stuart admits the weakness of this argument in the following words:— “For the sake of emphasis, the Hebrews commonly employed most of the words which signify Lord, God, &c., in the plural form, but with the sense of the singular”.4 We could easily fill pages with the concessions of scholarly Trinitarians on these two points, that neither the word Elohim nor the few plural pronouns are to be regarded as evidence of a plurality of persons in the Godhead.

 

Continuing the Scripture proof, there are numerous passages in which our heavenly Father is styled the “Holy One”, the “Mighty One”, the “High and Lofty “ One”, &α “I am Jehovah, the Holy One, the Creator of “ Israel, your King”—Isa. 43:15. “I have not concealed the words of the Holy One”—Job 6:10. “Unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel”—Ps. 71:22. “For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity”—Isa. 57:15. “Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah of Hosts, the Mighty One”—Isa. 1:24, &c. &c. Here we would remark that, while we find texts speaking of God as the Holy One, the Mighty One, &c., in the singular number, there is an entire absence from the Bible of phrases such as the Holy Three, the Mighty Three, and the like. This could not have been the case had the doctrine of “three Persons in one God” been revealed or known to the authors of the Sacred Volume. In view of these things Bishop Beveridge may well say that, “the Jews, though they had the law three thousand years, and the prophets above two thousand years, yet to this day they never could make this [the Trinity] an article of Faith”.5 It seems almost incredible that any intelligent person, who has carefully read the Bible, can claim it as a support of the doctrine of a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead. The authors of the Sacred Volume appear to have been totally unacquainted with such a view of the nature of God.

 

It maybe said that “the term God includes the person of Jesus Christ and also the Holy Ghost”. This is an assumption not only without proof, but opposed to repeated statements of Christ himself, as well as of the sacred writers, who constantly speak of God as the “God and Father of Jesus Christ”. On the cross Christ said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”—Matt. 27:46. And afterwards he said, “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God”—John 20:17. He spoke of God as being distinct from himself as one person is from another. “I came from God”—John 8:42. “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God”—Mark 10:18.

 

_______

2 Sermon in 1786 in the Bampton Lectures. Similarly Dr. South, Grotius, Mercer, Limborch, Rosenmiiller, and others.

3 Lectures on Systematic Theology, p. 489.

4 Grammar of Hebrew Language, p. 180. Similarly Michaelis, Buxtorf, and others. We refer our readers to twelve pages of such admissions in “Wilson’s Concessions of Trinitarians”, to which we are much indebted. If the argument from Elohim proved anything, it would prove, as in the ascription in Hebrews, chap 1: 9, to Christ, “thy  throne O Elohim,” that a plurality of divine persons existed in Christ.

5 Private Thoughts, part ii. p. 66. Similarly Bishop Tostat, Bishop Blomfield, Archbishop Lawrence, and others.

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It is difficult, if not impossible, to suppose that the disciples as they walked and talked with our Saviour, thought they were holding converse with the Almighty God Himself. The late Archbishop Longley admits this:—“I should therefore be prepared to expect that the grand disclosure of Christ’s divine nature would not be formally made to them till that period ... the descent of the Holy Ghost.6 They thought and spoke of Christ both before and after the day of Pentecost as “a man approved of God”—Acts 2:22. He “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with “God and man”—Luke 2:52; “He prayed to God”— Luke 6:12; “He had come from God and went to God”—John 13:3; “God made him Lord and Christ”— Acts 2:36; “the Head of Christ is God”—1 Cor. 11:3; “He is at the right hand of God”—Acts 2:33; “God raised him from the dead”—Acts 2:32; “God has given him a name above every name”—Phil. 2:9; and, finally, “He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father . . . . then shall the Son also himself be subject unto Him that put all things under him, that God  may be all in all”—1 Cor. 15:28. Every student of the New Testament knows that such passages as the above abound in its pages. Evidence like this demonstrates that Christ is a person as distinct from God as the disciples were distinct from Christ, or from one another. A writer who carefully examined the New Testament says “that 1326 times the word God is applied to a person distinct from Jesus Christ”. With a clearness and a force of language that cannot be surpassed, Christ, the brightest example of a religious life and a religious teacher, has taught that God is his God and Father, as He is our God and Father.7 Why need we doubt his word, or hold a theory of him, or of our heavenly Father, out of accord with all he taught? Perplexing, indeed, and constantly perplexing, must all the preceding texts be to those who hold that  “there are three persons of equal power and glory in the Godhead.”

 

When we are told that there are two other persons of equal power and glory to God the Father (and He, the; Father of Christ, was the only God known to the Jews), we are reminded of texts like the following:—“There is none like me”—Exod 9:14; “For who in the heaven can be compared unto Jehovah”?—Ps. 89:6; “For who is like unto Jehovah our God”?—Ps. 113:5; “To whom then will ye liken God? . . . or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One”—Isa. 40:18-25; “There is none like unto Thee, Jehovah . . . none like unto Thee”—Jer. 10:6, 7; “Who is a God like unto Thee”?—Micah 7:18. We need not quote further evidence that the God-inspired prophets had no idea of any other person or persons of equal power and glory to their Jehovah God Also the whole tenor of the worship of the first apostles is as adverse to the Trinitarian theory as is anything in the Old Testament.

 

Yes, strictly corroborative of the views of patriarchs, prophets, and psalmist, as to the absolute Unity of God, is the teaching of Jesus Christ and his apostles; and they still further strengthen this doctrine by their instruc­tion and example about prayer and worship.8 Christ prayed to the Father, and taught his followers that “the true worshippers shall worship the Father”, “for the Father seeketh such to worship Him”—John 4:23. He says, “In that day ye shall ask me nothing”—John 16:23. There is no command or exhortation in the New Testament to worship any being other than “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”, Paul says, “I worship the God of my fathers”— Acts 24:14. “I bow my knees unto “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”—Eph. 3:14. This is the uniform language of the New Testament. Precept and example are plentifully found for this, and only this. Christ in his prayer addresses God as “the only true God”— John 17:3. It is not until hundreds of years after apostolic times that we find in the Christian Church a prayer to “the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and one God”. Christ himself, after his ascension, was never addressed by any of his disciples, except on occasions when, as to Stephen and to Paul, he was actually and visibly appearing to them.


_______

6 The Brothers Controversy, p. 54—57. Cardinal Newman (in his “Arians of the Fourth Century”, p. 55—a book written when he was a clergyman of the Established Church), says, “The most accurate consideration of the subject will lead us to acquiesce in the statement as a general truth, that the doctrines in question [viz., the Trinity and Incarnation] have never been learned merely from Scripture”. Dr. Bennet (“Discourse of the Trinity”, ch. viii. p. 94), says, “During the time of our Saviour’s ministry, the disciples did not believe he was anything more than a mere man, conducted and assisted by the Spirit of  God”, and “There is not in all the New Testament one passage which implies that the disciples during his ministry believed him to have any divine nature”. Bp. Burgess (“Plain Argument for the Divinity of Christ”, § 6) admits, “The apostles appear not to have known that Christ was God till after his resurrection and ascension”.

7 John 20:17.

8 Abp. Wake (in his work on the Catechism, p. 130) says that the Lord’s Prayer teaches us “that we should pray to God only, and to Him as our Father through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Jeremy Taylor (Works xiii. 143) says, “That the Holy Ghost is God is nowhere said in Scripture. That the Holy Ghost is to be invocated is nowhere commanded; nor any example of its being done, recorded”.

 

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In view of the importance of the Scriptural argument for the strict UNITY of God, we do not ask those who hold a different opinion from ourselves to produce many texts of Scripture which contain a clear statement of their doctrine of the Trinity; we ask for one text only. We are told by scholarly Trinitarians that there is no such text. Luther rightly says:—“The word Trinity is never found in the Divine Records”.9 Hooker says more than this:—“Our belief in the Trinity, the co-eternity of the Son of God with his Father, the proceeding of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, these with such other principal points are in Scripture nowhere to be found by express literal mention; only deduced they are out of Scripture by collection”.10 Pages could be filled with similar testimony from the works of scholarly Trinitarians. They virtually concede that it is a doctrine of inference and of church authority. And let it be remembered, this is done notwithstanding the express state­ments of the sacred volume; such as the following:—“Hear O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah”. “I, even I, am HE, and there is no God with ME”. “Thou shalt have none other God but ME”. “In that day there shall be One Jehovah, and his name ONE”. “Jesus answered, the first of all the commandments is, Hear O Israel! the Lord our  God is one Lord”. “This is life eternal that they might know THEE, THE ONLY TRUE GOD, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”. “There is ONE God, the Father”. “God is one”. “When ye pray, say, Our Father”. “The true worshippers shall worship the Father”.

 

It has been said, and we endorse the statement, that so far as facts and arguments go, the question between the two theologies, the Trinitarian and the Unitarian, is as completely settled as the question between the two astrono­mies the old, which makes our earth the centre around which sun, moon, and stars revolve every twenty-four hours; and the new, which makes our earth a lesser planet in our solar system, which is but one among countless systems of worlds. With the facts fairly presented and considered, it is no more possible to believe in the old theology than in the old astronomy. And all that we have to do is to set the facts fairly before the people.

 

_______

9 Postil Major, fol. 282; Confut. Rat. Latom, tom. ii. fol. 240.

10 Eccles. Polity, book i. § 14.

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Concessions of Trinitarians.

 

“There is this distinction which attaches to us, that the sense which we put upon important passages is the very sense given to them by Orthodox writers —Madge.

 

An array of texts, such as we have presented, may appear like special pleading or an ex parte statement on the side of the absolute unity of God; for it is sometimes said that the advocates of every different theory or church system can find texts in the Bible for their views.

 

To this we are able to reply, that learned defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity acknowledge the deficiency of Scriptural evidence for their views. Bishop Smalridge says truly, “It must be owned that the doctrine of the Trinity, as it is proposed in our Articles, our Liturgy, our Creeds, is not in so many words taught us in the Holy Scriptures. What we profess in our prayers we nowhere read in Scripture, ‘that the one God, the one Lord, is in person not one only, but three  persons in one substance.’ There is no such text in Scripture as this, that ‘the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped’. No one of the inspired writers hath expressly affirmed that in the Trinity none is afore or after other, none is greater or less than another.”1 And Neander, in his Church History,says, “ This doctrine [the Trinity] does not, it appears to me, belong strictly to the fundamental articles of the Christian Faith; as appears from the fact that it is explicitly set forth in no particular passage of the New Testament; for the only one in which this is done, the passage relating to the three that bear record (1 John 5:7), is undoubtedly  spurious, and by its ungenuine shape testifies to the fact how foreign such a collocation is from the style of the New Testament writings. We find in the New Testament no other fundamental article, besides that of which the Apostle says, that other foundation can no man lay than that is laid—the preaching of Jesus as the Messiah; and the foundation of his religion is designated by Christ himself as the faith in ‘the only true God, and in Jesus Christ whom he hath sent’”. Luther, as we have seen, admits “The word Trinity is never found in the Divine Records, but is only of human invention. Far  better would it be to say God than Trinity.”Calvin says:—“I dislike this vulgar prayer, ‘Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us’, as altogether savouring of barbarism”.Dr. South goes further than Luther and Calvin, and says:—“It must be allowed that there is no such proposition as this, that one and the same God is three different persons, formally and in terms to be found in the Sacred Writings, either of the Old or New Testament; neither is it pretended that there is any word of the same significance or importance with the word Trinity, used in Scripture with relation to God”.It would be easy to multiply concessions such as the following:—“We ought to believe that there are three persons in one essence in the Deity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, though you never find in Scripture these sublime and remarkable words”.So that when Cardinal Wiseman asked the question, “Where is the term Trinity to be discovered in Scripture”?he asked a question which is capable of only one answer, not as a matter of opinion but as a matter of fact, that not only the term Trinity, but no statement or definition of the doctrine, is to be found in the Bible. The Rev. James Carlile says:—“I have ever disliked  the use of the word Trinity in prayer to God, as not being a name whereby God reveals Himself to us, and as savouring of scholastic theology”.We would once more remind our readers that the above are all concessions of Trinitarian divines, who most justly observe that none of the terms used in speaking of the Trinity are to be found in the Sacred Volume.


_______

1 Sixty Sermons; Sermon, xxxiii. p. 348.

2 History of the Church, Bohn’s Edition, Vol II. p. 286

3 “Trias is first found in the writings of Theophilus. Trinitas, in the writings of Tertullian”.—Schaff. “If Theophilus was the first who employed the word Triad, Trinity, that abstract term, which was already familiar in the schools of philosophy, must have been introduced into the theology of the Christians after the middle of the second century”.—Gibbon’s Roman History, vol. iii., chap. 21.

4 Tractat. Theol., p. 796.

5 Consid. on the Trinity, p. 38

6 Cochlaeus. Bishop Beveridge gives (“Tracts for the Times”, vol. iii., p. 30, No. 77) the doctrines “that three distinct Persons are to be worshipped—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—and that each of these is very God; and that Christ is very God and very man in one and the same person, as instances of doctrines which are not read expressly and definitely in Holy Scripture. This I call at once dogma [the Trinity] and above our comprehension. If they be intelligent agents, they must have three independent wills of their own, and what becomes then of the Unity of the Deity? . . . We cannot be called upon to believe that which we do not understand, and which, after all, is only handed down to us by tradition”.— The date Duke of Sussex.

7 Lectures on Doctrines, &c., p. 270.

8 Jesus Christ the Great God, p. 232.

 

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When we are told that texts may be produced from the Bible to uphold any theory, we can meet the assertion by the simple truth, that there is no text in the Bible in which there occurs the phrase “Trinity”, or “Three persons in one God”, or “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God”, or any other equivalent of the doctrine taught in the creeds of the churches. This important fact is conceded by many scholarly divines who profess the Trinitarian faith. In a very recent work, a Rural Dean, the Rev. T. Mozley, brother-in-law to Cardinal Newman, writes as follows:—“I ask with all humbleness where the idea of Threeness is expressed in the New Testament with a doctrinal sense and force? Where is the Triune God held up to be worshipped, loved, and obeyed? Where is He preached and proclaimed in that threefold character? We read ‘God is one’, as too, ‘I and the Father are one’; but nowhere do we read that Three are one, unless it be in a text long since known to be interpolated . . . . To me the whole matter is most painful and perplexing, and I should not even speak as I now do, did I not feel on the threshold of the grave, soon to appear before the Throne of all truth . . . .  Certainly not in Scripture do we find the expression ‘God the Son’, or ‘God the Holy Ghost’. Whenever I pronounce the name of God, simply and first, I mean God the Father, and I cannot help meaning that, if I am meaning anything”.9

 

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9 Reminiscences of Oriel College and the Oxford Movement.

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The Testimony of History.

 

“Christianity conquered Paganism, but Paganism infected Christianity. The rites of the Pantheon were introduced into her institutions, and the subtleties of the Academy into her creed.”Macaulay.

 

If there be one fact in the history of the Christian religion more striking and demonstrable than another, it is this, that our religion started its career with a purely Monotheistic theology. We have already shown that there is not a single sign in the pages of the Gospels, or of the Acts of the Apostles (the first records of our religion) of any attempt to introduce any different theological conceptiori of the Unity of God than that which for ages had been known to the Jewish people.2 It would appear that the Christian religion is not singular in the changes which have taken place since its first promulgation. Writers on such religions as those of the ancient Egyptians, the Brahmins, and others, contend that a much greater theological simplicity marked their earlier than their later career.3

 

No historian ignores the serious conflicts which took place during the third and fourth centuries in the Christian Church. Mosheim says that “it is certain that human “learning and philosophy have at all times pretended “to modify the doctrines of Christianity, and that these “pretensions have extended further than belongs to the “province of philosophy on the one hand, or is consistent “with the purity of the Gospel on the other”.4  The Platonic philosophy, Gibbon says, “anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries [the Trinity] of the Christian revelation”.5 Bishop Horsley concedes that “Platonic converts to Christianity applied the principles of their old philosophy to the explication and confirmation of the articles of their faith. They defended it by arguments drawn from Platonic principles, and even propounded it in  Platonic language”.6 Mosheim says of the first three cen­turies, “Nothing was dictated to the faith of Christians in the matter [of the Trinity]; nor were any modes of expression prescribed or requisite to be used in speaking of this mystery.”Similarly, the late Bishop Hind remarks, “It seems to have called for no explanation, and is not even spoken of as a mystery”.8 “These doctrines”, says Dr. Olinthus Gregory, “concerning the nature of the Trinity which in preceding ages had escaped the vain curiosity of man and had been left undefined by words and undetermined by any particular set of ideas, excited considerable contests through the whole of this [fourth] century”. Surely a doctrine of which it is so repeatedly said, by Trinitarian historians, that “we find no trace of any words” which set it forth during the first centuries; that “there was no mode of expression prescribed in speaking of it”; that “it was left undetermined and undefined by any set of ideas”; that it “called for no explanation”; that it “was kept in the background”; “that it was not even spoken of as a mystery”—could not have had much influence in that primitive, heroic, and martyr age of the Church, even if it then had any existence among Christians.

 

It is generally admitted that the three creeds, the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian, mark successive stages of development in the doctrine of the Trinity. Mosheim says of the first two centuries of Christianity, “The Christian system as it was hitherto taught, preserved its native and beautiful simplicity, and was comprehended in a small number of articles. The public teachers inculcated no other doctrines than those taught in the Apostles’ Creed” . . . .   Everything beyond the reach of common capacities was carefully avoided”.9

 

It was the Council of Nice, A.D. 325, which introduced the Nicene Creed. But it was the Council of Constan­tinople, A.D. 381, that gave the finishing touch to the doctrine which the Council of Nice had left imperfect of three persons in one God, and that branded with infamy all errors and set a mark of execration upon all heresies.10

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1 Essay on Lord Bacon.

2 “The systematic doctrine of the Trinity was kept in the back-ground in the infancy of Christianity, when faith and obedience were “vigorous”.—Dr. J. H. Newman’s “Arians of Fourth Century”. II i., p. 160.

“It is apparent to me that the Christian religion has been corrupted from very early times, and that these corruptions have been mistaken for essential parts of it, and have been the cause of rendering the whole religion incredible”.—The Duke of Grafton.

4 History of the Christian Church: Second Century.—“The Hellenic, philosophy operated from without, as a stimulating force, upon the form of the whole patristic theology, the doctrines of the Logos and the Trinity among the rest”.—Schaffs History of Christian Church, vol. i., p. 284.  “Those who maintained that learning and philosophy were rather advantageous than detrimental to the cause of religion, gained by degrees the ascendant”.—Mosheim, Second Century, Part 2. As there are numerous editions of Mosheim’s work, and various transla­tions, we quote passages as under the century in which they are to be found. Our quotations are from Maclaine’s translation, 1810.

5 History of the Roman Empire, vol. iii., chap. 21.

6 Collected Charges, p. 130; London 1830. A school of Platonists at Alexandria (see “Cudworth’s Intellectual System”) taught, that in the Godhead were (1) The supreme good: (2) the mind or intellect: (3) the soul. And that the second was generated from the first, and the third was dependent on the first and second. All Church historians affirm, with Bishop Horsley, that the Platonic doctrines were forced on the attention of the early Christians. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, used to tell the Arians to go and learn the Trinity from the Matonists. St. Augustine confesses that he was in the dark about the Trinity until he read some Platonic writings “which the providence of God had thrown in his way.”

7 History of the Christian Church.

8 History, Rise, &c., of Christianity, p. 35.

9 History of the Christian Church (Second Century, Part II.).

10 The words of Mosheim are (Fourth Century, Part II.) “A hundred and fifty Bishops who were present at this Council [Constantinople, A.D. 381] gave the finishing touch to what the Council of Nice had left imperfect, and fixed in a full and determinate manner the doctrine of three persons in one God . . . they branded with infamy all the errors, and set a mark of execration on all the heresies”.

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From this time the arm of the State came forth to sustain ‘what the subtleties of philosophy had introduced into the Christian Church. Here is a decree11—21st Feb., a.d. 380— of which no one can mistake the meaning:—“We, the three Emperors, will that all our subjects follow the religion taught by St Peter to the Romans, professed by those saintly prelates, Damasus, Pontiff of Rome, and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, that they believe the one divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of majesty co-equal in the Holy Trinity. We will that those who embrace this creed be called Catholic Christians. We brand all the senseless followers of other religions by the infamous name of heretics, and forbid their conventicles to assume the name of Churches. We reserve their punishment to the vengeance of Heaven, and to such measures as divine inspiration shall dictate to us”. This decree appeared in the names of Gratian, Valentinian II., and Theodosius. It was the official notification of the doctrine of the Trinity; and thus, as Dean Milman puts it in his “History of Christianity”, “the religion of the whole Roman world was enacted by two feeble boys and a rude Spanish soldier”.12 Waddington, a Trinitarian, says that only two years after the Council of Constantinople, “Theodosius addressed the Arians, A.D. 383, thus, ‘I will not permit throughout my dominions any other religion than that which obliges us to worship the Son of God, in unity of essence with the Father and the Holy Ghost, in the adorable Trinity’. . . . As Theodosius persevered inflexibly against the Arians, and his severities were attended by general and lasting success, the doctrine of Arius, if not perfectly extirpated, withered from that moment rapidly and irrecoverably”.13 The testimony of Gibbon is very similar· “In the space of fifteen years Theodosius issued no less than fifteen severe edicts, more especially against those who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity; and to deprive them of every hope of escape, hesternly enacted that if any laws or rescripts should be alleged in their favour, the judges should consider them as the illegal productions of either fraud or forgery.”14

 

It is clear, that toward the close of the fourth century, the Church had arrived at a period when a new nomenclature had been successfully introduced into its creeds and prayers. The simple and Scriptural Monotheism of the Jews, and of the first Christian Church, was completely gone.15 The doctrine of the Trinity, the offspring of heathen mysticism, philo­sophy and sophistry, was set up. This change did not come without serious conflicts, protests, and convulsions.. The whole of the fourth century bears witness to this. Men of learning espoused different sides in this theo­logical warfare. The mass of the people raised their voice against the innovation. Epiphanius writes, A.D. 350, that the short, plain argument of the body of the people in his time was, “Well, friend, what doctrine “now? Shall we acknowledges God or three Gods”?16 Other disputes quickly sprung up on nice points. One of these was on the question whether we ought to say “One of the Trinity suffered in the flesh”, or “One person of the Trinity suffered in the flesh”. On this pretty puzzle there were many different opinions. From that day to this the doctrine of the Trinity has been the subject of differences so constant and serious that we are inclined to think Christen­dom will soon say, what Archbishop Tillotson once said of the Athanasian Creed, “I wish we were well rid of it”.17

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11 Codex Theodos, xvi., 1, 2. See “Milman’s History of Christianity”, vol. i., chap. 9.

12 History of the Christian Church (A.D. 383), chap. 9.

13 History of the Christian Church (A.D. 383), chap. 7.

14 History of Roman Empire, vol. iii., chap. 27.

15 “In the article of the Trinity, the Christian conception of God completely defines itself in distinction alike from’ the abstract Mono-theism of the Jewish religion, and from the polytheism and dualism of the heathen”.—“Schaffs History of the Christian Church,” vol. i., p. 282.

16 See Priestley’s “History of the Corruption of Christianity”, and also “Early Opinions”, for other similar statements. “For nothing is more manifest than this truth, that the noble simplicity and dignity of religion were sadly corrupted in many places when the philosophers blended their opinions with its pure doctrines” . . . . “The sacred and venerable simplicity of the primitive times, which required no more than a true faith in the Word of God, and a sincere obedience to His holy laws, appeared little better than rusticity and ignorance to the subtle doctrines of this quibbling age”. — Mosheim v under the Fourth Century.

17 Letter to Bishop Burnet. The Council of Ephesus (431) decreed that Mary was “the mother of God”. After this a dispute arose on the question of Anne, the mother of Mary, whether she should be called, “the mother of the mother of God”, or, “the grandmother of God”. One absurdity paves the way for another.

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In concluding this part of our task, we cheerfully acknowledge the fact that, on the question of the Unity of God, men of equal intelligence and devotion are found on different sides. The names of illustrious divines, scholars, and others, who for fifteen hundred years have graced the Church and the world with their learning and goodness, and who at the same time believed in the doctrine of the Trinity, are well known. But it is also true that in the earlier period of the Church,18 as in modern times, not a few whose names are household words in Christendom for virtue and learning have held the Scriptural and Unitarian view of God. John Milton was a careful and indus­trious student of the Bible. Yet the following are words of his, in a treatise he wrote against the Trinity:—“For my own part, I adhere to the Holy Scriptures alone, I follow no other heresy or sect. If, therefore, the Father be the God of Christ, and the same be our God, and if there be none other God but one, there can be no God beside the Father”.

 

Sir Isaac Newton, it is well known, was a devout reader of .the Bible. Yet all acquainted with his theological opinions admit that he adopted Unitarian views. He says:—“There is One God, the Father, ever living, omnipresent omniscient, almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, and one mediator between God and men—the man Christ Jesus. The Father is the invisible God, whom no eye hath seen or can see. All other beings are sometimes visible. All the worship (whether of praise, or prayer, or thanksgiving) which was due to the Father before the coming of Christ, is still due to him. Christ came not to diminish the worship of his Father”.

 

With Milton and Newton there is another name constantly associated, as sharing the same distinguished mental rank, John Locke. The evidence of his Unitarian belief is so complete that no one now denies that he held the same theological opinions on this subject as the poet and the philosopher.19 He had well considered the Scriptural, and also the historical, arguments for and against the Trinity. He says, “The fathers before the Council of Nice speak rather like Arians than the orthodox.” . . . . “There is scarcely one text alleged by the Trinitarians which is not otherwise expounded by their own writers.” . . . . It [the Trinity] is inconsistent with the rule of prayer directed in the Sacred Scriptures. For if God be three persons, how can we pray to Him through His Son for His Spirit”?

 

Towards the close of a long and active life, the celebrated Dr. Isaac Watts was constrained to abandon his former Trinitarian views. We have the clearest evidence of this in his “Solemn Address to the Deity”, in which occurs the follow­ing:—“Dear and blessed God, hadst Thou told me plainly in any single text that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three real, distinct persons in Thy divine nature, . . . . I should have joyfully employed all my reasoning powers, with their utmost skill and activity, to have found out this inference, and engrafted it into my soul . . . . The Deity is not made up of three such distinct and separate spirits”.

 

With the names of Milton, Locke, Newton, and Watts, we can associate those of Chillingworth, Lord Falkland, Sir M. Hale, Dr. Samuel Clarke, Whiston, Whitby, Benson, Lardner, Porson, William Penn, Sir W. Jones, Hales of Eton, and others, who made the Bible and theology a speciality of their studies. Poets like Akenside, Barbauld, Rogers, Joanna Baillie, Roscoe, Bryant, Longfellow, Emerson; and philosophers like Priest­ley, Franklin, Hutcheson, Price, Rittenhouse, Cavendish, and De Morgan, also embraced this simple faith in One God, the Father. It was adopted in the last century by five eminent Bishops of the Established Church, Rundle, Clayton, Watson, Law (of Carlisle), and Law (of Elphin).20 Brewster says that “England may well be proud of having had Milton, Locke, and Newton for the champions of Protestantism”;—and we can also say that our views of the absolute unity of God have been honoured by the testimony of these and other learned men. Still we place our reliance, for religious truth, on the Word of God, not on the wisdom of man. To the law and the testimony we appeal—to the Bible, and the Bible only, as the religion of Protestants.

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18 We claim not only the first apostles and teachers of Christianity, But the great body of the “noble army of martyrs and confessors”, of the ante-Nicene period, as having held the strict unity of God. The ante-Nicene fathers invariably spoke of Christ as subordinate to the Father. In the third and fourth centuries there was a Trinity held up to be believed in, but not a Trinity of equal persons in the Godhead. “All the learned men in the second century agree in saying that the Christians worship only one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”.—Bouzique. The following are words of Origen, “We must pray only to God, the Father of all, to whom the Saviour prayed.  . . . In this we are all agreed, and are not divided about the method of prayer”. The prayer of Polycarp, when he was tied to the stake, shows very clearly to whom prayer was then addressed: “O  Lord God Almighty, the Father of thy well-beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have received a knowledge of Thee”, &c.

19 See Lord Chancellor King’s “Life of Locke”.

20 Others add, Bishop Hoadley.

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Bible Texts Supposed to Refer to the Trinity.

 

“There is scarcely one text alleged by the Trinitarians which is not otherwise expounded by their own writers”.1John Locke.

 

In quoting the language of eminent Trinitarian divines who say that “the word Trinity is never found in the  Divine Records”, that “you never find in the Sacred Scriptures ‘three persons in one God’”—that “ the phrase Holy Trinity is dangerous and improper”—that “there is no such proposition as that one and the same God is three persons”—“where in the Scriptures is the Triune God held up to be worshipped, loved, and obeyed”?—we do not wish to convey the idea that our Trinitarian neighbours do not produce any texts from the Bible as indirect support of their views. We know they do advance Scriptural proofs; but the fewness of such texts is notable. In Wesley’s “Sermon on the Trinity”, one text alone, 1 John 5:7, is relied on. This is now removed from the New Testament as spurious. In the “Complete Analysis of the Bible,” by the Rev. Nath. West, D.D., a most extensive work, four texts are relied on; one of these, as we have already said, is removed. In this work there are probably five hundred texts on the person of Christ, and only four texts as Scriptural proofs of the Trinity. In Dr. Eadie’s “Classified Texts of the Bible”, most elaborate work, like Dr. West’s, founded on Talbot’s “Analysis of the Bible”, while there are twenty-eight pages of texts devoted to the person of Jesus Christ, there are only six texts adduced as Bible proofs of the Trinity. Let us examine these, and we shall find that what John Locke said of the concessions of Trinitarians is verified.

 

(1) Isa. 48:16: “The Lord God and His spirit hath sent”, &c. We have before us over a dozen concessions on this text, but let the words of Luther and Calvin suffice. Luther says, “This passage has been amazingly darkened. The Jews understood it of the prophet; and this opinion I adopt . . . . It will not validly support the mystery of the Trinity”. Calvin says, “Many apply it to Christ, but they are not supported by the language of the prophet. We should beware of violent and forced interpretations”.2

 

(2)  Matt 3:16,17: “The spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him; and lo a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased’”. There is nothing said here of three co-equal and co-eternal persons in the Godhead. We agree with the words of a: Calvinistic commentator on this text, that “the spirit of God  is said to come upon men when they are eminently qualified to undertake any great office”—Rosenmuller. “The epithet beloved; given to the Son on this occasion, marks  the Father’s greatness of affection for him”— Macknight.  “This is my Son whom I have sent on purpose to reveal my will by him; and whatsoever he teaches comes from me,  and is perfectly my will or law”—Hammond. When Dr. Afiam Clarke says, “This passage affords no mean proof of the doctrine of the Trinity”, we reply there is no proof here of three persons in the Godhead All Christian Uni­tarians, as well as Trinitarians, believe in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit It would be a great mistake to infer from this that all believe that these three are one God.

 

(3) Matt 28:19, “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. On this text Michaelis remarks, “We know how frequently this passage is quoted as a proof of the doctrine of the Trinity . . . . I must confess I cannot see it in this point of view. The eternal Divinity of the Son which is so clearly taught in other passages is not here once mentioned, and it is impossible to understand from this passage, whether the Holy Ghost is a person. The meaning of Jesus may have been this: Those who were baptised should, upon their baptism, confess that they believed in the Father, and in the Son, and in all doctrines inculcated by the Holy Spirit”.3 We are at one with the view of this divine, and also with Rosenmüller, who says, “We are baptised into the Father, as the Author of a new religion; into the Son, as the Lord of a new Church; and into the Holy Spirit, as the guardian and assistant of this Church”. We have before us other testimonies, such as “Though the three persons are indeed named, no mention is made of a unity of essence and of a real distinction of persons”.—Nihusius.

 

(4) 2 Cor. 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost”. In this passage, as in all others which mention the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, nothing is said of their being one God. We all believe in the Father as the only true God. We believe in the Son as the messenger of God; and in the Holy Spirit as a gift from God. We use most freely the New Testament language touching the Father. Son and Holy Spirit, while we hold that there is not the least suggestion in it of a tri-personal Deity. “These and the like Words”, says Hammond, “are a form of greeting which includes in it all good wishes, but not a solemn prayer to those persons named in the form”.

 

(5) It must be noted as a very remarkable thing that the only passage in which Father, Word, and Holy Spirit are spoken of as One (1 John 5:7) is excluded from the Re­vised New Testament as spurious.

 

Another text quoted by Dr. Eadie is, “For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father”. It must puzzle the most ingenious person to discover how this proves that there are three persons in the Godhead.

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1 Common Place Book.

2 “Eminent theologians, as Jerome, Vatablus, Calvin, our own Dutch divines, and others, will have these to be the words of Isaiah to himself”. —Witsius on the Creed, Diss. vii. 15.

3 The Burial, &c., of Jesus Christ, pp, 325—327.

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We will now quote, without comment, certain other texts which we have known produced as Scriptural evidence of the Trinity, which show how hard pressed the de­fenders of the doctrine must have been to have had recourse to them:—Ps. 33:6, “By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the  breath of his mouth”. Numb. 6:24, “Jehovah bless thee and keep thee: Jehovah make his face to shine upon thee: Jehovah lift up his countenance upon thee”. Isa. 6:3, “And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts”. Isa. 34:16, “Seek ye out of the book of Jehovah and read: . . .  his mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them”, 1 Cor. 12:4-6, “There are diversities of gifts but the same spirit, and there are diversities of administration but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations but it is the same God who worketh all in all. Rev. 1:4-5, “Grace be unto you and peace from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits that are before the throne, and from Jesus Christ”. On these texts learned Trinitarians have wisely said that the triple use here and there of words like “Jehovah,” or the word “Holy” is a very unsubstantial proof of so important a doctrine, Grotius remarks, “Surely such repetitions are void of mystery; and imply nothing but the unparalleled excellence of the thing spoken of, or some extraordinary emotions of the speaker”.4 Calvin says, “Plainer texts ought to be adduced, lest in proving the chief article of our faith we should become the ridicule of heretics”. But where are those plainer texts? We are not aware of any texts, except the above, which have been used as Bible proofs of the Trinity. Again we challenge anyone to find us one passage in the whole compass of the Bible where the doctrine of three persons in one God is stated or even hinted at. It is only “by inference” says one, “by collection” says another, “by the authority of the Church,” says another, that we derive the doctrine of the Trinity.

 

The first teachers of Christianity were never charged by the Jews (who unquestionably believed in the strict unity of God), with introducing any new theory of the Godhead.5 Many foolish and false charges were made against Christ; but this was never alleged against him or any of his disciples. When this doctrine of three persons in one God was intro­duced into the Church, by new converts to Christianity, it caused immense excitement for many years.6 Referring to this, Mosheim writes, under the fourth century, “The subject of this fatal controversy, which kindled such deplorable divisions throughout the Christian world, was the doctrine of Three Persons in the Godhead; a doctrine which in the three  preceding centuries had happily escaped the vain curiosity of human researches, and had been left undefined and undetermined by any particular set of ideas.”

 

Would there not have been some similar commotion among the Jewish people in the time of Christ, if such a view of the Godhead had been offered to their notice, and if they had been told that without belief in this they “would perish everlastingly”?

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“The threefold repetition is thought to have so little of an argu­ment in it as to scarcely merit any answer”.—Dr. South.

“Monotheism was the proud boast of the Jew”.—Canon Farrar, “Early Days of Christianity”, vol. i., p. 55.

“In the Fourth Century”, says Jortin, vol. ii., p. 60, “were held thirteen Councils against Arius, fifteen for him, and seventeen for the semi-Arians,—in all, forty-five”.

 

 

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